Potato Rosemary Bread Roll with Cheddar Cheese - Potato Overload with Potato Soup

We were still trying to finish the 5-kg bag of potato S’ dad gave us over a month ago. Before we finished them, we were given another bag of potatoes. Apart from giving these potatoes to our neighbours and our friends, I was on a mission to try using some of these potatoes up.

During the brief cold spell we had last week, I had the idea of potato bread with potato soup. This would easily get rid off almost 2 kg of potatoes (means less potatoes ending up in compost bin, which I hate to see).  S wasn’t warmed to the idea as it was too potato overload for him. I followed the woman instinct and pursued the idea without letting him know. Turned out he loved that bread roll with potato soup, without knowing that the bread roll was made with potatoes.

See, you can hardly taste the potato in potato bread even though you know the food well. Potato does, however, enhance the taste and bread tenderness noticeably.

I adapted the recipe from potato and rosemary bread from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker Apprentice cookbook and added cheddar cheese into the roll for extra flavour. Because of the added-cheese (its saltiness), I reduced the amount of salt in the recipe by 40%. This was the first time I experienced how much effect salt can have in the dough fermentation. Fermentation was so much faster than normal (salt slows down dough fermentation). The bulk fermentation only took 1.5 hours at 20°C as opposed to 2 hours at 25°C suggested in the recipe.  

The dough hydration looks somewhat low at 57%. However, the recipe contains substantial amount of mashed potatoes, at 33%. Potatoes would release more liquid and moisture into the dough and makes it a little loose.

These rolls were great savoury breads. It was fantastic accompaniment to the soup. It would also make great sandwich rolls and meal accompaniments. Potato and rosemary always work well together. I love the wonderful aroma of rosemary. With cheddar cheese added, it gave extra depth of flavour to the bread.

Here is the recipe…

Potato and Rosemary bread rolls with Cheddar Cheese Recipe

Adapted from Peter Rienhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice

Makes 12 bread rolls

	Overall Formula	Baker’s Percentage
Bread flour	516 g	100%
Water	292 g	57%
Instant yeast	5 g	1%
Salt	6 g	1%
Black pepper	2 g	0.4%
Mashed potatoes	170 g	33%
Olive oil	14 g	3%
Fresh rosemary	7 g	1.4%
Cheddar cheese	45 g	9%
Total	1.06 kg	205%

Biga Ingredients

Bread flour 120 g

Instant yeast 1 g (1/4 teaspoon)

Water, at room temperature 80 g

Total 201 g

Note: Biga is about 20% of total dough weight.

Final dough ingredients

Biga 201 g

Bread flour 396 g

Salt 6 g (reduced salt to counter the cheese in the recipe)

Black pepper, coarsely ground (optional) 1/4 teaspoon

Instant yeast 4 g (1 1/4 teaspoon)

Mashed potatoes 170 g

Olive oil 14 g

Fresh rosemary, coarsely chopped 7 g (2 tablespoons)

Water 212 g

Cheddar cheese (shredded) 45 g + 15 g for sprinkle on the rolls

Making biga (one day before making the final dough)

Stir together the flour and yeast. Add water and stir until everything comes together and makes a coarse ball. Knead for 4 -6 minutes by hand or mix on medium speed for 4 mins. The dough will be soft and pliable, not sticky.

Leave the dough to ferment for at room temp for 2 to 4 hours or until it nearly doubles in size.

Remove the dough from the bowl and knead it lightly to degas and return it to the bowl, covering the bowl with plastic wrap. Place the bowl in the refrigerator overnight.

Making the final dough

Remove the biga from the fridge 1 hour before you plan to make the bread. Cut it into about ten small pieces with a pastry scraper or serrated knife. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap and let sit for 1 hour to take off the chill.

Stir together the flour, salt, black pepper, and yeast into mixing bowl (or in the bowl of an electric mixer). Add biga pieces, mashed potatoes, oil, rosemary, and water. Stir with a large spoon (or mix on low speed with the paddle attachment) for 1 minute, or until the ingredients form a ball. Add more water, if necessary, or more flour, if the dough is too sticky.

Sprinkle flour on the counter, transfer the dough to the counter, and begin to knead (or mix on medium speed with the dough hook). Knead for approx 10 mins (or 6 mins by the machine on medium speed), adding more flour if needed, until the dough is soft and supple, tacky but not sticky. Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil. cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

Ferment at room temperature for approximately 1.5 hrs, or until the dough doubled in size (there is less salt in the recipe, hence shorter fermentation time).

Remove the dough from the bowl and divide it into 12 equal pieces, about 85 g. Preshape into balls, and rest for 10 mins. Flatten the dough slightly and fill with cheddar cheese, wrap to enclose the dough and roll it into ball. Continue with the rest of the doughs.

Sprinkle some cheddar cheese on top of the dough. Leave to proof at room temp for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 200C. Lightly brush the roll surface with olive oil.

Bake the rolls for 20 - 25 mins or until golden brown, turn the tray half way for even browning.

Cool on racks.

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Sourdough Rye with Raisins and Walnuts - a jump to 35% rye bread

The rye adventure continues. I am now venturing into 35% rye percentage. I used Jeffrey Hamelman’s Sourdough Rye with Walnuts and Raisins recipe from Bread: a baker’s book of techniques and recipes. The recipe sounds quite promising; rye, walnuts and raisins. These are three delicious ingredients together. So, I upped the recipe about 25% to get 2 kg batch (2x 1 kg loaf). And we weren’t disappointed. The bread was delicious. Rye and walnuts are a classic pairing. With raisin added, it’s great trio.

I followed Hamelman’s recipe to include the commercial yeast in addition to the rye starter (in the past, I omitted the commercial yeast and increase the sourdough starter percentage and fermentation time to make up for that).  One of the advantages of including commercial yeast is shorter fermentation and proofing time. It only took 3.5 hours from mixing to finished loaves. It made a perfect bake for breakfast on weekend. I was happy with that.

The breads got a nice texture from walnuts, natural sweetness from raisin and nice earthly flavour from rye. It makes a great toast. The walnut smells great when the bread was toasted.

This was the first time that I made the rye bread without retarding the dough. Few weeks ago, I made 20% rye bread with rye starter and overnight retardation and found the bread to be too acidic. The flavour of this week’s bake (without retardation) tasted better for me. It got nice flavour from rye without being too sour.

Tried different scoring technique.

The crumb wasn’t as open as others. However, it is what to be expected with fruit and nuts breads. Dried fruits tend to impede the crumb opening and result in bread with tighter crumbs.  The bread also browns quicker comparing to others because of natural sugar in dried fruits. To prevent the bread over-browning before it is cooked, I had to reduce the temperature to 215C for the last 10-20 minutes.

All in all, this bread is flavoursome and it was a fantastic change to rye fruits and nuts bread from the white ones. I would make this bread often if it isn't because I have a long to-bake list, which is getting longer faster than I can bake them. 

Here is the recipe... 

Rye Sourdough with Walnut and Raisin recipe
adapted from Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread: a baker's book of techniques and recipes

make 2 large loaves


INGREDIENTS

	Overall Formula	Baker’s Percentage
Bread flour	666 g	65%
Rye flour	358 g	35%
Water	697 g	68%
Salt	19 g	2%
Yeast	5 g	0.5%
Raisin	128 g	13%
Walnuts	128 g	13%
Total	2.00 kg	195%

Sourdough Built
Medium rye flour 307 g
Water 246 g
Sourdough starter 16 g

Final Dough
High gluten flour 666 g (I used flour with 12.5% protein)
Medium-rye flour 51 g

Water 451 g
Salt 19 g
Instant dried yeast 5 g (1 ½ tsp)
Raisins 128 g

Walnuts 128 g

Sourdough starter 553 g (all less 16 g for future use)

METHOD

Prepare sourdough built:  Mix sourdough starter with water and add rye flour to the mixture. Mix until it is well-combined. Leave the sourdough in a covered container at room temperature (70°F or 21°C) for 14 - 16 hours until it is ripen.

Mixing: When the sourdough is ripen (it will be dome on top). Add all the ingredients to the mixing bowl, except walnut and raisins.  Mix until the ingredients are incorporated. Leave it to autolyze in a bowl covered with plastic bag or wrap for 15 minutes. 

Sprinkle salt over the dough surface and mix on the first speed for 3 minutes and continue mixing on second speed for further 3 – 4 minutes, until a strong gluten development is achieved (the dough can be stretched gently until you can see the transparent membrane and dough doesn’t tear).

Gently mix walnuts and raisins through the dough. Desire dough temperature is 80°F/26°C.

Bulk fermentation: - Leave the dough in a lightly oiled container and cover the bowl with plastic bag or wrap for 1 hour until doubled in size.

 
Divide the doughs into two equal portions. Pre-shape the doughs into rounds  and let them rest for 10 – 15 minutes under a tea towel.

Shape the doughs into oblong (batard) and place into proofing baskets/bowls. Slip the proofing basket into a large plastic bag. Let the shaped dough proof for 50- 60 minutes until almost doubled in size. 

Baking: Preheat the oven to the highest temperature and prepare the oven steaming.

Lower temperature to240C and bake for 15 minutes with steam, then lower the temperature to 225C and bake for another 15 min and reduce to 215C for the final 10-20 minutes.

Submitting this post to YeastSpotting.

Crackling crust...it sings

Cherry Ripe Macarons - one tasty little morsel!

Cherry Ripeâ is one of my favourite chocolate. This chocolate could potentially be available only in Australian and New Zealand. I never came across this bar before until I came to Australia. It is made by Cadbury Chocolate and made of juicy cherry and coconut wrapped in dark chocolate.

I love creating macaron flavours. I think about macaron concoctions continuously, non-stop. One of the flavours that I like to think about is the replication of chocolate bar. Think about famous chocolate bars like Snickers (caramel, peanuts, chocolate), Toblerone (chocolate, almond, nougat), Mars (caramel, chocolate). There are reasons why they are so popular and classic hits. It’s because the combination of flavour works. It stands the test of time. Instead of inventing your own flavour and invest in the trial-and-errors of flavour combination. It’s a short-cut to borrow the idea from what is proof to be a successful concoction.

I got a bag of unopened organic desiccated coconut that was going to expire in a month. As I hate throwing away food, there’ll be more baking with coconut on the way.

I love opening a new packet of coconut. The aroma is sensational. It transports me back to the streets of Thailand. I can picture the street stalls selling sweets, puddings, or even grilled satay chicken. It smells deliciously sweet, creamy and toasty. It wows me every time.

To replicate Cherry Ripeâ flavour, there were three ingredients that came to my mind. As you might have guessed, they were coconut, cherry and dark chocolate, which I combined them into the macaron filling. I also added ground desiccated coconut into the macaron shell mixture as well (I grind them in a food processor). My house smelt fantastic when the macarons were being baked.

I took some of the macarons to work and my workmate named the flavour straight away that it was Cherry Ripeâ. Maybe she was good with the flavour or maybe it is an Aussie icon thing that people will be able to sense it from miles away. It also meant that my macaron turned out to be something I intended to. Quite happy with that!

Here is the recipe….

Cherry Ripe Macaron Recipe

Inspired by Cherry Ripeâ chocolate by Cadbury

Makes 25-28 3-cm macarons

More details on Basic Mararons using Italian Meringue techniques can be found here.

You can also see more detailed intructions on making macarons in my Basic Macaron Recipe and I heart Macarons blogs (however, they are recipes using French meringue method. Most of the processes are similar between Italian’s and French’s. The only difference is the handling of sugar and egg white).

Macarons shell ingredients
125 g pure icing sugar
75 g almond meal (almond flour or ground almond)
50 g ground desiccated coconut (grind them in a food processor)
100 g egg whites (separated 24 -48 hours in advance and is at room temperature)
125 g caster sugar (super fine sugar)
30 ml water (2 tablespoons)
red colouring powder or liquid

Chocolate Cherry Ripeâ filling
70 g dark chocolate, chopped
100 ml thickened cream (minimum 35% fat content)
20 g butter
40 g desiccated coconut
60 g glace cherries
 
Making macarons shells
 

Grind desiccated coconut in food processor until finely ground.

Sift almond meal, ground desiccated coconut and icing sugar together through fine sieve and set aside.

Divide egg whites into two equal portions (50 g each portion).  Pour the first portion of egg white (50 g) and red colouring powder or liquid into the almond meal/icing sugar mixture.  Don’t mix or stir them, just leave it as is.

Put the water and caster sugar in a heavy-base saucepan over medium-high heat. When the syrup starts to boil. Place the rest of egg white (50 g) into a mixing bowl, using the whip attachment, whip egg white to the soft peak. When the syrup reaches 118°C (on a thermometer), take if off the heat and let it cool down to 115°C (or until the bubbles slightly subside).

While the mixer is still running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl. Be careful not to pour syrup onto the whip as it might spatter.

Continue mixing until the meringue cool down to slightly above body temperature (50°C) or when the side of the mixing bowl is warm to touch. The whipped egg white will be (very) stiff and glossy.

Mix a third of whipped egg white into the almond meal mixture and combine them well. At this step, I work the mixture very vigorously to blend the egg white with almond meal mixture. Fold the rest of whipped egg white into the mixture and mix well, yet gently, until the batter is smooth. The batter will be thick. It resembles a very thick cake batter, or as many web sites describe it as a magma-like consistency (I believe it means the thick batter would flow slowly like a magma).

Put the mixture into a piping bag fitted with 1-cm plain tip (size #11). Pipe the staggering rows of 1-inch rounds onto baking papers or baking sheets. You will need two trays for this recipe.

Let the piped shells stand at room temperature for 30 – 60 minutes to let the crust forms. This depends on the room temperature and humidity. When the piped shells are dry to touch without it sticking to your fingers. They are good to go into the oven.

Preheat the oven to 160°C (fan-forced or convection oven, increase the temperature by 20°C if you’re using conventional oven) for at least 15 minutes. Just before baking, turn the temperature down to 150°C and bake the macarons for 15 minutes.

Lift the baking papers/sheets off the baking tray to the cooling rack and let it completely cool down before removing macarons (it is easier to remove cool macarons off the sheet. They are also less likely to stick to the paper).

Sandwich cool macaron shell with chilled chocolate Cherry Ripeâ filling.

Store macarons in a covered container in a fridge. Macarons will taste better after they are chilled overnight.

Making Chocolate Cherry Ripeâ Ganache

Grind glace cherry with desiccated coconut in a food processor, until roughly chopped. Set aside.

Put dark chocolate in a separate bowl.

Bring cream to the boil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Remove it from heat as soon as it comes to the boil. 

Pour hot cream into chocolate. Leave it for about 10-20 seconds. Stir the chocolate and cream mixture until melted. Scatter butter pieces on the mixture and stir until well combined.

Mix in cherry and coconut mixture until all combined.

Chill the ganache at least an hour before using.  

Bear Claws and fourth time is a charm making croissants

I'm on the mission, a very hopeful one, to make good-looking and delicious croissants, the ones with crisp and flaky crust with buttery-layered interior.

Gaining more tips and tricks, my fourth-time making croissant was a charm. Literally, I was doing happy feet when this batch of croissants turned out nicely and well-browned with lots of flaky layers. It made a great weekend for me.

 

There could be many factors that contribute to better results this week. I used different type of butter, the Danish style cultured butter, which is more pliable and easier to work with when it came to rolling. The room temperature was not as high as last week’s. It was around 20C which was perfect for making laminated dough (in my opinion). The butter remains solid, not melting. I also laminated the dough carefully. I rested the croissant dough frequently when I felt that I had to use the force in rolling it. This has helped tremendously as butter didn’t get worked too hard and melted. It was the first time that I rested dough while laminating each turn.

I retarded the shaped croissants overnight. It took 2.5 hours at 24C to fully-proof the retarded croissants. It is critical that the croissants are fully-proof before baking. This will ensure that you’ll get the flaky croissant filled with buttery layers.

I also made half of the batch into bear claws. It's croissant pastry filled with frangipani (a mixture of ground almond with sugar, butter and egg). The pastry was shaped and scored to resemble a bear’s foot, which is really cute. It is also yummy. It got the moisture and pronounced almond flavour from frangipane filling. It made a great snack for afternoon tea. 

I used the scrap pieces from the trimming of croissant dough to make a pesto baguette. The baguette turned out well and delicious. It even got flaky layers. The buttery baguette worked well with acidic tomato and rocket salad. It was a great and delicious way to use up the croissant scraps. Perfect! I didn't need to throw away food. 

I used the croissant recipe from Bourke Street Bakery cookbook. The full recipe can be found here.

Bear Claws Recipe
adapted from Bourke Street Bakery Cookbook

makes 10

Ingredients
1 quantity croissant dough, recipe is here

franginpane
55 g caster sugar
55 g unsalted butter
1 large egg
95 g almond meal (ground almond)

egg wash1 egg
1 tablespoon full-cream milk

Making frangipane

Cream the butter and sugar together until it is pale and creamy. Add egg and mix until combined. Add almond meal and mix until well-combined. Set aside.

Take the rested croissant dough from the fridge and roll it out into a rectangle, about 20 x 70 cm.

Cut the dough into ten 8 x 14 cm rectangles. Place the rectangles on trays lined with baking paper and place in the fridge for about 10 minutes to let the butter become solid after the rolling and let the gluten relax.

Remove the rectangles from the fridge and place 1 tablespoon of frangipane in the centre of each rectangle. Fold the dough in half, pressing the edge to seal. Make four 3-cm cuts on the wider sealed side to resemble the toes of a bear.

Place shaped bear claws on trays for proofing. Brushing the surface with egg-wash and cover the tray loosely with tea towel. Set aside in the warm room (about 25C) for 1 1/2 - 2  hours for proofing until it almost double in size.

The claws are proofed when you can see the layers or pastry and they are soft an jiggly when you slightly touch them.

Pre-heat the oven to 240C.

Remove the tea towel, lightly brush the dough surface with egg-wash and place them in the oven. Reduce temperature to 190c and bake for 20 - 25 minutes, or until they're a deep golden brown. Cool on racks and dust the claws with icing sugar before serving.

Submitting this post to YeastSpotting.

Chia Seeds Rye Sourdough - Another Weekend with Rye

Another weekend baking with light rye bread and continue keeping with 20% rye flour.

Last week's light rye bread with overnight retardation (chilling the shaped doughs in the fridge overnight to slow down fermentation) yielded too acidic loaves to my liking. So, this week I used the white starter instead of rye starter in the recipe, which I was hoping to reduce the acidity (sour taste).

I also added chia seeds into the dough as I planned to give some of the bread to S'mom when she came over. We were introduced (or heavily convinced) to the chia seed goodness by her. Apparently, this seed is a super food. It is rich in omega-3 fatty acid, protein and fibre. She gave us a big bag and tried to convert us into chia seed devotee.

I soaked the seeds with 1.5 part of water (1 g seed:1.5 g water). The seeds appeared to soak up all the water and became thick jelly paste. It was impossible to drain any water out of the seeds.  The dough became really wet after the seeds were incorporated (I mixed the seeds in after the gluten has developed). As a result, I had to do the stretch and fold in the bowl (to strengthen the gluten structure further). I also had a slight (very slight) trouble shaping this rather wet dough. Shaping the wet dough is always a bit of a challenge. It was a challenge to create enough surface tension without tearing the dough surface. I tried not to add too much flour and brushed the excess flour whenever possible. 



Chia seed turned into gel-paste after they were soaked in water


I baked one loaf in a pan and the other as a freestanding loaf. The level of oven spring was clearly visible at the one baked in loaf pan. The crust colour was virtually different between two sections, the bottom and the top bit (pale colour on the section of original dough volume and dark colour on the oven spring section). It was interesting to see how much volume the dough has gained after the bake.



The bread gained significant volume as evidenced by the different crust colors



Before and after


I also tried a new oven steaming method recommended by Chad Robertson in Tartine Bread book (baguette recipe section). Mr Chad suggested placing soaking wet tea towel in a baking pan at the bottom of the oven when it is pre-heated. I also added about half-cup of water into the towel tray twice during the first 10 minutes of baking. The towel tray was removed after first 15 minutes. I also combined this steaming towel with my usual boiling water with pre-heated cast iron pan. It created so much steam that the smoke alarm went off! The alarm was off a few times when I opened the oven to pour more water into the towel. I think I would have laughed at myself if I happened to videotaping my actions. I was jumping onto the kitchen bench with my kitchen towel, waving away the steam from the smoke alarm. The alarm stopped. I stopped waving the towel. The alarm went off again. Waving towel again. Stopped, and sitting on the bench, swinging my legs and wait to see if the alarm would be off again. You know how smoke alarm can be really loud and so alarming.

New steaming technique with soaking wet towel placed in tray underneath
combining with cast iron pan on the top shelf

I love this new steaming method. It provided better loaf volume and shinier crust. It also removed the need of constant spraying the oven for the first 10 minutes (it also means no open-and-close the oven every minute for spraying and the oven heat was more contained).



Nice and shinier crust with the new steaming technique

 The bread was nice and moist which gave a great chewy crumbs. It was mouthful and a pleasant to eat. I believe that the gel-texture of chia was turned into liquid and got absorbed in the crumb and contribute to the softer bread texture. Chia seeds also gave a slight crunch and texture to the bread. The bread got just-right sour taste, not too acidic. I think by using white starter instead of rye starter gave less sour flavour. Personally, I think using rye starter at 20% rye percentage bread with overnight retardation would yield too sour a bread for me. If I am to continue retarding my dough with 20% rye flour and over, I would use the white starter instead of rye starter. However, this is my personal preferences. I like this flavour profile (with white starter) better. It has the sweet and nuttiness from wheat and slight acidity and earthiness from rye.


Chia seeds seemed to get lost in the crumb



A quick notes from this week's bake:

·         Sourdough bread with 20% rye flour using white starter instead of rye starter

·         New steaming method, a tray of wet towel placed in the oven while it was pre-heating. It provided much more streams, great oven spring and shinier crust.

·         Chia seeds turned into gel-paste after being soaked and contributed to very moist crumbs. The bread was lovely with a chewy tender crumbs.

·         I bake two loaves, with one in the pan and the other free-standing, at the same time with the same temperature. The pan-loaf weighted 1.3 kg (before baking).  As you might have guessed, the pan-loaf got softer crust. Given that it is a lean bread, without fat and sugar, it got rather pale crust. I generally like crusty bread. However, it is such a nice change to have soft bread with soft crust. It’s nice to give my jaw a break sometimes.

·         I also baked them slightly longer due to its high liquid percentage.

Here is the recipe…

Chia Seed Rye Sourdough
Makes 2 loaves

Overall Formula		Baker Percentage
Bread flour	1032 g	80%
Rye flour	252 g	20%
Water	938 g	73 %
Salt	25 g	2 %
Chia Seeds	65 g	5 %
Total	2.31 kg	180 %

Soaker

Chia seeds 65 g

Water 98 g, room temperature

Total 163 g

Final dough

White starter (100% hydration) 450 g, active starter

Bread flour 807 g

Rye flour 252 g

Water 615 g

Salt 3 teaspoons, 25 g

Soaker all of the above

METHOD

Prepare soaker: Mix chia seeds with water about 12 – 18 hours before the baking. Let it sit in a covered container at room temperature.

Mixing: Add all the ingredients to the mixing bowl, except salt and soaked chia seeds.  Mix until the ingredients are incorporated. Leave it to autolyze in a bowl covered with plastic bag or wrap for 15 minutes. 

Sprinkle salt over the dough surface and mix on the first speed for 3 minutes and continue mixing on second speed for further 3 – 4 minutes, until a strong gluten development is achieved. If mixing by hand, it would take approximately 15 – 20 minutes to have a well gluten development. Desired dough temperature is 80F/26C

Mix chia seed soaker through until they are well-incorporated into the dough.

Bulk fermentation: - Leave the dough in a lightly oiled container and cover the bowl with plastic bag or wrap for 2 – 2.5  hours. Do the stretch and fold twice at 50 minute and 100 minutes (every 50 minutes intervals).

Divide the doughs into two equal portions (I made it into 1.3 kg and 1 kg portions. 1.3 kg was for the loaf pan). Pre-shape the doughs into rounds and let them rest for 15 minutes under a tea towel. Shape the doughs into oblong (batard) or round (boule) and place into proofing baskets/bowls. Slip the proofing basket into a large plastic bag and retard the dough in the fridge overnight, between 8 –12 hours. 

Baking: take the doughs of the fridge. Let them sit at room temperature to continue its proofing. This will take between 1 –2 hours depending on the room temperature. In the meantime, preheat the oven to its highest temperature.

Bake at 240°C (460°F) for 15 minutes with steam, then lower the temperature to 225°C (440°C) and bake for another 25 – 30 minutes.

Leave the loaves to cool down in the oven with the door ajar. This is to help the bread drying out thoroughly with its internal moisture.

Submitting this post to YeastSpotting.

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